


saving the world and other functions of a fender stratocaster

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M, Multi, Pop Punk AU, incomplete - abandoned, significant amounts of cameos and references just gratuitous amounts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:39:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or the story of love and disaster and love that's a disaster and also a hell of a lot of junk food and guitar strings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. heavy gloom - the story so far

**Author's Note:**

> i have no excuses except that i'm pop punk trash and this was inevitable. cheers.  
> enjoy xoxo

“So I think I’m quitting the scene.” 

Anton fumbles the drumsticks he’d been idly flipping from hand to hand and winces as they clatter to the ground. Sonny doesn’t even blink, just blows smoke in his direction amusedly and raises both eyebrows. His hair is gathered in a big messy knot on top of his head and it quivers when he lifts his cigarette to take another drag; someone had stuck a dandelion in it at some point and it’s still there now, wilted but cheerful. 

“Sure you are,” Anton says and bends to swipe his drumsticks from the cracked asphalt. “Just like you were going to dye your hair blue last week.” 

Sonny blows a strand of stubbornly black hair out his eyes and shrugs. They’re out behind the venue, Sonny to smoke and Anton just because. It’s a brilliant summer day, warm and sweet and soft like some kind of art film montage. 

“I am,” he says. 

Anton looks at him for real this time. 

Sonny’s looking up at the sky and the cigarette between his lips is sending up little white surrender flags. He’s sprawled out with his back against the wall, looking like nothing so much as the train wreck collision of a hippie and a teenage emo. There’s nothing conflicted in his expression; it’s peaceful. His hands are relaxed against the ground, tapping an idle beat. 

“Well,” Anton says and sticks his drumsticks in his back pocket. “Fuck.”

* * *

The show is amazing. 

Sonny is a wild thing on stage, as always. Climbing the mic stand, climbing the amps, frenetic energy and barely tamed motion. Screaming into the audience like it’s what he’s born to do. A fan snatches his mic and screams the chorus for their second-to-last song before being dragged away by security and Sonny smiles big and wide like he always does and Anton watches it all from behind his drumkit. 

There’s no suggestion Sonny’s unhappy. Nothing at all. Anton can almost convince himself he’d hallucinated the whole thing, that he’d made it all up in his head in some kind of paranoia-fueled nervous break. 

He almost misses the cue to step out from behind his kit, wave to the crowd and walk backstage to hide until the crowd has screamed itself into a frenzy for an encore. As they loiter momentarily, riding the waves of noise, he looks over and he realizes Sonny’s staring into space. He’s not even listening to the crowd. 

It’s real, whatever it is that’s making him want to quit the scene. 

They file back out and Anton throws his confusion into the drums because that’s what he’s good at. Sonny sings and screams and when he sweeps a clumsy little bow at the end of the last song and giggles at the crowd it’s real, but Anton thinks his expression’s just a little too distant.

* * *

“So how long have you wanted to quit?” Anton asks quietly. The rest of the band, Tommy and Getter and the rest, have made off for the bar long ago. Sonny had hung back, ostensibly to smoke, and Anton had stayed behind because Sonny had been looking right at him when he’d said it. 

Sonny breathes in and then breathes out. He looks contemplative, face lit up faintly orange by the cherry of his cigarette. 

“It’s been awhile,” he says and Anton nods, leans back against the side of their van and tries to puzzle out how he feels. 

OWSLA is done, probably. Sonny’s their golden ticket, the voice and the presence and the spark of something else that means he can reach out into a crowd and touch every single person in it. The soul of the band or something, when Anton feels sufficiently drunk to dip into thoughts that sentimental. Without him there’s nothing. 

Anton’s _band_ , his life for the past two years, over and done with. 

It doesn’t feel very good. 

“I’m sorry,” Sonny says and Anton feels his hand settling on his shoulder. It’s an attempt at comforting. His tone is genuine and slightly miserable, hesitant in that way that means he’s waiting for Anton to react, ready for Anton to react _poorly_. Maybe he’s not entirely wrong because for a moment it’s hard not to shrug his hand away. 

“Well,” Anton says and huffs out a sigh, rolling his neck and pushing away the sick feeling curdling in his stomach. Not something he can do anything about. “What’s your plan, then?” 

“Who knows,” Sonny snorts, shrugs. “Maybe I’ll get into, fuck, maybe I’ll play some fucking dubstep, who knows. Shit’s crazy.” 

Anton barks out a laugh, startled and genuine and snapping through the tension cleanly. 

“Yeah fucking _right_ ,” Anton snorts at him and then laughs even harder when Sonny just waggles his eyebrows teasingly at him. The sick tightness in his gut is falling away; not gone but masked for now, less important than the sweet giggle Sonny can’t restrain. 

“I’m thinking one last tour,” Sonny says and takes a drag, quick and increasingly excited. “Farewell tour, probably could convince Diplo and maybe even Joel to come along, make a whole big deal out of it. Cross country, maybe Canada, who knows! OWSLA’s pretty popular, we could get some great venues.” 

He’s bobbing in place, stupid-wide grin, cigarette a bare centimeter from burning his hand. Anton takes it from him just because, because he’s going to miss this so much when he doesn’t have it anymore so he’ll appreciate it now. Anton really can’t bring himself to blame Sonny at all even though in some tiny, ugly part of himself he kind of wishes he could.

He takes a drag, feels the unpleasant burn and kind of maybe understands cigarettes and why people smoked them. Sonny watches him do it with understanding in his eyes but he doesn’t say anything and doesn’t protest when Anton flicks the cherry to the ground and watches it sizzle out. 

“When are you telling everyone else?” he asks quietly. Sonny shrugs. 

“Tonight?” he offers. “I wanted to tell you first.” 

“Thanks,” Anton snorts and heaves himself away from the side of the van. It’s cold and the chill has finally soaked through every layer of flannel he’s wearing. The night’s wet too and there’s whiskey inside and he really, really needs it. “Getter’s going to cry, probably.” 

“Fuck,” Sonny says, suddenly looking alarmed.


	2. the rock show - blink-182

Getter cries. Tommy doesn’t, though he does get up without a word and leave for the bathroom and come back much later than a simple piss break would justify. Sonny smiles at them all anxiously and doesn’t relax until the end of the night, when a completely trashed Getter corners him and spends ten minutes telling him in tearful, incoherent earnestness about how much he’s going to miss OWSLA.

Anton watches this happen from behind his beer and smiles to himself and tries to ignore the tight, sick knot in his stomach that he can’t understand.

Only when he’s home in the shitty apartment he splits with a few other people when he’s off tour that he has the chance to sit down and think about it. In the dim, musty silence of his room he stares at the chipped paint on the wall. The holes where thumbtacks had been, the discolored spot where someone had puked during one of the million parties all blurring together in the back of his head. It comes to him when he gives up and starts shuffling through his things, sorting CD cases and merch shirts and loose drumsticks, dented with use but still whole.

He’s scared. He’s scared of… of what? Of losing the band? It’s almost right when he tries that thought on, almost except not quite. It’s more than that.

It’s the music. He’s scared of losing the music.

He sighs and tucks his hands between his knees and turns that over in his head.

He can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing _to_ be done.

Someone in the kitchen starts shouting, words muffled into incoherence but tone cheerful. Someone else shouts back, and then the people above them start banging on the ceiling. Anton huffs out a breath that might have been a laugh if someone had been there to hear it and starts stacking his dirty laundry up to take to the laundromat.

There’s a whole tour between him and the end of his band. He’ll figure something out.

* * *

_GOING HOME TOUR_ , the poster reads in big, drippy, cartoony letters. There’s little aliens instead of the letter O, a giant spaceship in the background, and the whole thing reeks of Sonny’s meddling hand.

 _OWSLA’S FAREWELL TOUR_ , the subheader continues, _FEATURING: DIPLO & FRIENDS!!! MAUSTRAP!!! FEED THE NOISE!!!_. Bands Anton knows pretty well, though he hasn’t seen them in a while. There’s a bunch of dates, a whole slew of venues. A little over two months.

Not enough _time_.

Anton stares at the poster for a long time, the van shivering around him as Tommy and Getter argue over who’s amps get loaded first. It’s comforting background noise, friendly and worn through with repetition. Sonny’s in the front, fighting a pitched battle against the halfway-broken headrest of the driver’s seat.

He knows this all so well. He’s done it a million times.

He folds the poster up and slips it into the front pocket of the backpack at his feet.

“So how long’s it going to take to get to the venue?” he asks and looks up to find that Sonny’s watching him in the rearview mirror. It’s hard to say what his expression’s doing behind his sunglasses but Anton is pretty sure he doesn’t like what he sees.

“Depends on how fast they get their shit together,” Sonny tells him and thumbs back past them both to where the shouting is rapidly escalating. As if on cue there’s the sound of a fist meeting a stomach, the sharp _oof_ of expelled air, and a triumphant yell. The van gives a final lurch and then Tommy’s dashing around the side of the van, flashing past Anton’s window and sliding haphazardly into the passenger seat.

Getter swears loudly from the back and starts to heave his own equipment into place.

“So how long to the venue?” Tommy asks breathlessly.

* * *

They get to the venue late, of fucking course. Getter tackles Tommy backstage and they wrestle about it for a while. Anton ignores them, just does his damndest to keep the drum techs from fucking up his kit when they try to unload it for him. He doesn’t have time to say hi to anyone, though he nods to Wesley and slaps out a sloppy, douchey bro handshake with Joel.

The show is fucking wild. The show is the kind of legendarily wild that means Sonny’s going to be sending an apology email to the venue owner the next day, probably. A kid climbs into the rafters and doesn’t come down until security goes up after him. Sonny leans out into the crowd, again and again, holds out the mic and the face he makes as they scream his words back at him is transcendent.

Anton throws his heart and soul into playing and when the encore ends and he’s filing off stage he lingers for half a second to watch the crowd reach after them.

He’s not committing it to memory, he lies to himself.

He follows Getter off into the commotion of backstage.

“Anton, my man!” Joel yells in his ear as soon as he’s stepped over the tape line that separates still-sort-of-stage from backstage proper. A second later a long, bony, sweat-drenched arm is draped over his shoulder and he’s being dragged into a smelly, octopus-like hug. Joel stinks of beer and sweat and guitar strings and Anton laughs, wiggles around as best he can to throw his arms around Joel too.

They stagger sideways and Joel nearly steps on his guitar tech trying his best to untangle the strap to Joel’s guitar from his wildly swinging hand.

“Sorry, sorry,” Anton mouths at him and elbows Joel until he lets go. The tech just snorts and rolls his eyes and finally yanks the strap free, stalking away into the bustle. Anton watches him go with a blink before shaking his head and turning back to Joel.

“Afterparty, bitch!” Joel crows, shoves at Anton until he starts walking further into the back of the venue. “I heard there’s a karaoke bar a block over!”

“Oh, fuck,” Anton groans and Joel laughs at him, wild and manic.

“Bet you ten bucks I can convince Wes to cover something stupid,” he says, tone loud and faux-conspiratorial, and Anton caves with a snort. He’s not going to miss this for anything.

* * *

The karaoke bar is dim and grimy and stuffed full of venue people, roadies and techs and fans and musicians. Anton fights his way to the table in the back Tommy and a few techs have claimed and throws himself breathlessly into the chair they kick out for him.

He’s still covered in stage sweat. It feels grimy and good, an earned second skin, though he knows it’s going to feel nothing but bad in the morning.

“You just missed Bergling,” Tommy shouts in his ear. “He fucking _destroyed_ Caramelldansen, dude.”

Anton laughs so hard he nearly chokes.

“Good?” Anton shouts back when he can breathe again. Tommy shakes his head. His eyes are gleaming evilly and Anton wonders just who had dared Tim to do that song, specifically.

“ _Unspeakable_ ,” Tommy yells back and then shoves two shots into Anton’s hands.

He hesitates but then looks out across the bar, at all his bandmates, the others, everyone. The seething, screaming mass of people he loves fiercely even though he doesn’t know them at all.

The tequila goes down like a hammer to the throat, hitting his empty stomach and reminding him why he doesn’t usually do tequila. He downs the second one in quick succession anyways, making a face as it settles in his gut.

A roar goes up from the next table and suddenly someone’s staggering to their feet, propelled by a good ten hands. Anton turns to watch and sees it’s Wesley’s table, everyone from Diplo & Friends and then some. The dude is tall too, hair wild and arms flying out in wild, drunk motions. He’s protesting whatever they’re trying to get him to do but it’s token, even Anton can tell.

He turns away, giving in, and Anton catches his grin flashing in the dim lighting. It’s wide, dazzling, sly and mischievous and… and, shit, hot. Jesus. Fucking hell.

Anton recognizes him as he keeps turning, spinning loosely on his heel and staggering for the karaoke stage. He’s the rhythm guitarist for Diplo & Friends – the shitty guitarist. He hadn’t been very good. Anton can’t really remember his name but he does remember the way he hadn’t quite seemed to know what he was doing with his hands, a casual grip that hit the notes more by inevitability than skill or talent.

Briefly the dude messes with the machine and then bass is echoing from the speaker, embarrassingly familiar reverb. Anton sucks in a breath and then has to suffer through a coughing fit when it somehow goes down wrong. He gropes for water but takes the beer Tommy hands him, laughing, and downs that instead.

The dude totters onto the stage in a hail of jeers, cheering, his friends screaming at him to fuck off. He just grins at them, wraps his hands around the mic attached to the karaoke machine, and breathes in.

Anton’s braced for awful. He’s braced for bad or worse, for something just mediocre. He’s braced for this dude to stumble and fall and fail and have to suffer the walk of shame back to his table for daring to try to sing karaoke to _Boulevard of Broken Dreams_ , holy shit. Instead, he opens his mouth and what comes out is exactly what he hadn’t been expecting at all.

“ _I walk a lonely road_ ,” he sings and it’s good, his voice is clear and pitched low. It doesn’t sound drunk, though the way he’s swaying means he’s probably even less sober than Anton is. “ _The only one that I have ever known-,_ ”

Anton reaches blindly for the table. Tommy puts a shot in his hand. Anton drinks it without looking, grateful for the burn of whiskey instead of sickly tequila, and doesn’t stop staring. He can’t look away.

“ _My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me,_ ” the dude sings and he drops where he should have risen, voice going deeper. “ _My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating!_ ”

He’s holding the mic like it’s a lover, like Sonny did when he was feeling nice. His voice is rasping and growling and Anton feels it prickle in his stomach, shiver in his spine. It’s powerful. It’s _good_.

He looks down and realizes he’s actually sporting a semi. What the fuck.

“Holy shit,” he says faintly and Tommy laughs at him.

Anton doesn’t look away for the whole song. He’s not the only one, he’s peripherally aware others are whispering, are pointing at the stage. People are laughing but it’s with disbelief. This man has presence on the stage, the gravity that pulled Anton’s eyes back even when he tries to look away to set his beer back on the table.

He finishes, sweeps a deep and unsteady bow to the round of applause, and steps off the stage. He’s making his way to Wesley’s table and Anton moves to stand, to go to intercept. Instead Tommy lunges up, past Anton and grabs the man by the sleeve, pulling him sideways with a yelled greeting. The man follows, toppling into the chair Tommy shoves at him with drunken lack of grace.

“Hey!” he says. He’s still flushed, a little bit wet with fresh sweat. His hair is wilder than ever, strands plastered to his forehead and cheeks, eyes glittering and dark.

Anton’s semi has not gone away.

“Anton, drummer for OWSLA,” he introduces himself quickly, hoping no one looks down in his lap. He’s wearing a grin he can feel is sloppy and drunk on his face. The dude doesn’t seem to notice. His own head is bobbing, drunk and dazed.

“Dillon,” he says and teeters over to grab one of the abandoned beers from the middle of the table. “Rhythm for Diplo & Friends.”

“You’re not very good,” Anton says without thinking.

“Jesus, Anton-,” Tommy puts in from over his shoulder and Dillon’s opening his mouth too, drunk good humor falling away into a sharp expression that promises to be nasty. Anton barrels on anyway. His mouth is moving without his consent but honestly he doesn’t think he could make it _worse_.

“But you’re a fucking amazing singer,” he continues and Tommy huffs out a groan. Dillon blinks, the gathering storm sliding from his expression to leave pink-cheeked shock. “Why aren’t you fronting? You’ve got the voice for it.”

“Uh,” Dillon says faintly and then lifts the bottle to his lips and starts drinking. It takes a while, it must have been mostly full when he’d stolen it. “No band,” he says when he’s done, banging the bottle down on the countertop with slightly too much force. “Wes needed a rhythm guitarist and I can _kinda_ play.”

“Fair enough,” Anton says after a beat and shrugs, reaches for a beer of his own.

* * *

The shrill beep of a phone alarm in Anton’s ear wakes him.

For a long moment he flails, uncoordinated and moaning because he hurts _all over_. His head hurts, his muscles ache. His hips hurt from where they’re twisted to fit between… someone laying behind him and an amp? His stomach bubbles unpleasantly as he hesitantly tries to move. Whatever he’d done last night, he has a hell of a hangover now.

He doesn’t know where he is.

Blearily he opens his eyes, locates the bright phone screen and slaps at it until it shuts up. Behind him there’s a deep groan and whoever it is spooned up against him buries their face in the back of his neck. Whoever it is, they have a beard.

Anton wakes up quick, heart suddenly pounding, and sits up. His stomach heaves as he does, a twisting lurch that has him freezing in place for a very long time, until it finally settles. When he finally feels safe to move he hesitantly turns his head to look at whose legs are tangled up with his.

Dillon’s asleep still.

His hair is matted and his cheek is a mess of pressed-in lines from the carpet of – Anton glances around for a second and freezes again – what looks like the Diplo & Friends van. He’s covered in someone’s sleeping bag, head pillowed on his arm. There are bite marks on his neck and his mouth is still faintly swollen and the swooping in Anton’s stomach is suddenly not entirely his hangover.

He can remember… he can remember kisses in the dark, in an alley maybe. Dillon had gone out to smoke and Anton had left with him, smuggled out a beer under his coat they’d shared in giggling secrecy. Behind the venue probably. After that a blank stretch of nothing but the impression of heat and excitement. And then Dillon pulling him by the hand, the van bobbing into drunken view, giggling like children and trying to open the back of the van as quietly as they can.

There had been someone in the van, he remembers with a wince. He lifts a careful hand to rub at his aching eyes and feels back into his memories again. There had been a roadie – god he hopes it had been a roadie and not Wesley himself, fucking hell – who had abandoned ship as soon as it became apparent Dillon’s hand wasn’t going to come out of Anton’s pants no matter how much he yelled.

He remembers that Dillon had jizzed in a bright, hot burst as soon as Anton had wrapped a hand around his cock. That he’d cried out, that Anton had climbed on top of him and… fuck, he remembers the hot feeling of skin and bone in his hands, he must have been holding Dillon’s wrists down. The sweet friction as he ground his cock in the come-slick V of Dillon’s hipbone.

Dillon had gotten hard again. He remembers that because of the bright, vicious flare of pride he’d felt, jerking off and coming all over Dillon’s hands as he jerked himself off too. Jesus.

He doesn’t remember after that. Doesn’t remember if they’d decided to stay or just couldn’t work out how to move.

“Dillon,” he whispers because the sun is still low to the horizon from what he can see out the window but it isn’t low enough. People are going to come looking for them.

Dillon grumbles but doesn’t wake up, not until Anton reaches out clumsily and jabs him in the side.

“Dillon,” he repeats, louder.

Dillon wakes with a groan, long and cracking. For a long moment he moves around lazily, listless squirming with no particular purpose.

Anton knows he remembers when he freezes, stops and stares up at Anton.

His expression is blank. Panicked. His eyes are bloodshot. He still looks so good but Anton pushes that thought away.

“Fuck,” Dillon says and Anton opens his mouth to say something but Dillon’s scrambling upright. For a moment he teeters and Anton think’s he going for- he doesn’t know what, a kiss maybe – and then he’s diving for the door. He doesn’t make it, slips and lands on his side in a pile of loose-leaf paper.

“Jesus, what the hell?” Anton asks dazedly. Dillon makes a pained noise and turns over to look at him.

“Uh,” he says weakly. “I’m. Jesus. I’m gonna puke.”

Despite his words he doesn’t make for the door. He just sits there. Stares at Anton. His expression is still impossible to parse, one part horrified confusion to two parts something else entirely. Anton stares back at him for a while longer and tries to sort the whirlwind of thought into something that could pass for words.

“What now?” Dillon finally asks in an undertone.

“Be in a band with me,” Anton says.

Dillon blinks at him some more. Anton blinks back. It isn’t what he’d meant to say. He hadn’t meant to say anything at all. But as he said it the tiny ball of ugly, radiating tension in his gut loosens and he feels like he can breathe all the way into the depth of his lungs for the first time in ages.

Yeah. This is the right idea. A new band, with Dillon to sing for it.

Anton crushes the thought, the niggling memory of Dillon’s lips under his, tasting his own come in Dillon’s mouth, the heat of skin to skin. Ruthlessly shoves it into the back of his mind.

“…What?” Dillon asks.


	3. kali ma - neck deep

“No,” says Dillon.

* * *

Dillon finally sorts out the door and stumbles out, moving with discomfort that means he hadn’t bothered to clean the come out of his underwear last night. Anton’s feeling it too but he tries to ignore it, shades his eyes with a hand. The sun is getting higher and it’s too bright and everything hurts.

“Dude,” he says, scrambling out the door after Dillon. Dillon jumps, spins with a nervous smile. He looks even worse than Anton feels, rumpled and dirty, dark circles under his eyes.

“I’m serious,” Anton says. “Be in a band with me.”

Dillon squints at him for a long time. Hope rises in Anton’s chest, bright and phoenix-like, and he tries to hold Dillon’s gaze despite the brilliance of the sun and the sharpness of the ache behind his eyes. Vaguely he notices how striking Dillon’s eyes are, blue or green or something like both. He pushes the thought away with a hot, uncomfortable feeling in the base of his throat.

Dillon blinks.

“Jesus. I,” he says and then shakes his head, rubbing his eyes. “No. Jesus.”

Anton watches him walk away with something more than he’d expected aching in his chest. More than the stupid sting of rejection and accompanying anger.

He shrugs it away with gritted teeth, turning back to the van. He’d left a jacket somewhere in the mess of last night, a nice one, and he wants it back before someone from Diplo & Friends claims it.

* * *

Sonny is waiting in the van when Anton makes his way back, leaning on the hood and smoking with a cheerful grin.

“Heard you hooked up last night,” he leads with and Anton groans, deep from the chest. He does his best to ignore Sonny as he stalks past, throwing his jacket through an open window into the mess of the back. Sonny ignores being ignored, following him around and leaning against the side to continue smoking. Anton gives up and leans beside him, wincing a little at the feeling in his underwear.

Tommy and Getter are both gone. Anton vaguely wonders where they are and then decides he doesn’t care.

“Yeah,” he says tonelessly. Sonny frowns.

“Dillon wasn’t cool?” he asks, tone suddenly a lot less teasing. “Wes said he was a chill dude, what happened?”

Anton sighs, lifting his hands to his face and grinding the heels of his palms against his eyes. In the dark he can’t help replaying the scene, the panicked look on Dillon’s face when he’d recognized Anton. The way he’d looked walking away. The tone of his voice when he’d said _no_.

“I don’t know, I think I freaked him out,” he says and drops his hands. His chest feels heavy for some reason.

“Dude,” Sonny says. “What’d you do?”

“I uh…” Anton begins and then winces. “I asked him to be in a band with me.”

There’s a long pause and then Sonny’s laughing so hard Anton glances up to make sure he didn’t accidentally inhale his cigarette. He hadn’t, he’d dropped it instead in the process of bending to clutch his stomach. Anton glares.

“Fuck you,” he says at last. “He can sing, it’s not a bad idea.”

“Tell me you didn’t hook up with a guy just to convince him to be in a band with you,” Sonny says, tone thick still with laughter. He’s still bent over and so he misses the way that Anton can’t stop his face from twisting, the sharp pulse of hurt and offense.

“Fuck you,” he repeats, more sharply. Sonny stops, head tilting to look up at him.

“Sorry,” he says after a measured pause. “Jesus, he’s got you this fucked up already?”

“It’s not like that,” Anton says instantly.

He ignores the way his face is going hot and uncomfortable. He’s flushing but it’s just anger, he reasons. He’s pissed Sonny would think that about him, even as a joke. That’s all it is.

Sonny looks at him for a long time and even sideways his raised eyebrows are judgmental.

“Sure,” he says and last and heaves himself back upright. He’s still watching Anton carefully as he does, expression something careful and neutral Anton can’t read. “So he said no?”

“Yeah,” Anton sighs and scuffs a hand through his hair. He’s so gross, he hopes he can find a shower wherever they’re stopping next. “Maybe if I hadn’t like, sprung it on him when he hadn’t even had a chance to clean the come off his pubes, y’know?”

“Fucking _gross_ , dude!” Sonny says and shoves at him with an elbow. He’s grinning again when Anton shoves him back and they spend a moment on a pointless slapfight, barely nudging each other.

“You should ask him again,” Sonny says when they’ve settled into leaning against each other instead, Sonny tucked against Anton’s side. He’d pulled another cigarette from the pack in his pocket and he’s smoking it contemplatively. Anton snorts and punches him gently in the shoulder.

“He already said no,” Anton reminds him.

“Like you said,” Sonny says and blows smoke off to the side with a shrug. “It was a shitty time to ask. So convince him. You really like the dude and I’ve heard he’s a fucking sick singer. Put in the work. Woo him and shit.”

“ _Woo_ him,” Anton echoes faintly and then laughs, a little bark more nervous than he wanted it to come out. “Like, fuck. I don’t know. Should I?”

“You’re into this dude,” Sonny says and then hastily continues when Anton makes an annoyed sound. “Musically, I mean. Seduce him into your band with your sick drummer stick skills.”

“You’re so fucking obnoxious, how do you ever get laid,” Anton says but he’s looking back at the Diplo & Friends van, at the techies gathering to load up equipment and Wesley chatting to two girls on the sidewalk a few feet away. “Like… maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I don’t know.”

“Up to you,” Sonny says peaceably and blows a cloud of smoke.

“So where are Tommy and Getter?” Anton asks and Sonny shrugs.

“No idea. But if they don’t show up soon we’re going to be late to the next venue,” he says.

* * *

They’re late to the next venue.

At least Anton has an excuse to avoid Dillon. For now.

* * *

The show is wild and Anton pretends he doesn’t spend the whole of Diplo & Friends set watching Dillon’s uncertain fingers on the strings and the way he owns his part of the stage anyway. He’s got stage presence, Anton notes and then forces himself to look away. Christ.

Sonny’s watching him with raised eyebrows and Anton flips him off.

Their set is amazing, like always, rough and fast and everything he wants forever. He plays his heart out and when he stumbles off after the last encore his hands are aching. He’s exhausted and even grosser than before but Wes doesn’t flinch when he throws an arm around his shoulders.

“You owe my band a beer for traumatizing my fucking tech,” Wes shouts in his ear and when Anton looks past him it’s to see Dillon handing off his guitar, grinning so widely.

“Yeah,” he yells back. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The bar they go to is full but not too loud and when Anton crams his way into the Diplo & Friends booth he ends up across the table from Dillon. Dillon, who’s suddenly looking down at the tabletop. Who can’t meet his eyes.

Fuck that.

He jolts up when Anton kicks him under the table and frowns at him.

“Hey,” Anton says and then stops because he hadn’t actually thought this through. Adrenaline is buzzing in his veins, nerves tickling in his throat. _He’s got you this fucked up already_ , Sonny says smugly in the back of his head and Anton resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“Hey,” Dillon says hesitantly. He’s darting his eyes at the people to either side but Wes is flirting with the waitress and Billy is tapping away busily at his phone. “Uh, what’s up?”

The awkwardness is palpable and Anton makes the decision in a split second.

“Sing for my band,” he says and Dillon stares at him for a long, long moment.

“I,” he says at last. “No? No.”

“Alright,” Anton says and turns to order a round from the waitress. Out of the corner of his eye he watches Dillon blink at him blearily.

* * *

The next venue they get to with hours of daylight to spare and Feed the Noise pull a beach ball from somewhere in their van. The bands congregate and play something almost similar to but actually nothing like volleyball. It involves a lot of yelling and splashing beer in plastic cups and Anton loves everything about it, about these people and times like these.

Anton absents himself when he sees Dillon leaning against the venue wall to watch. He grabs two fresh beers and then heads over. Dillon watches him approach with a wary face but he looks less uncomfortable to see him than he had the night before. Anton counts it as progress.

“Be in my band,” Anton leads with and Dillon laughs, a surprised bark of sound.

“Jesus, dude. No,” he says and Anton nods, hands across one of the fresh beers.

“Does Wes still snore when he falls asleep in the backseat?” he asks and Dillon laughs again, another surprised noise. It sounds good, Anton doesn’t let himself notice. His chest is warm and it has nothing to do with Dillon at all, he tells himself.

“Fuck, like a fucking train,” Dillon says and takes a drink. “Drools too, dude. How’d you know about that?”

Anton launches into the story of the time the OWSLA van had broken down and they’d had to hitch a ride with all the other bands on the tour, the Tetris-esque stacking of equipment and how they’d almost left Getter in a truck stop just because he wouldn’t stop bitching about having to hold a drum in his lap for sixty miles. How Anton had shared the backseat with Wes and how Wes had snored so loudly that Anton had thought by the end of the night that he was going to have a psychotic break.

Dillon’s laughing so hard he nearly inhales his beer by the end and Anton watches it with a smile that feels way too fond on his face.

* * *

The next date is hard.

Equipment breaks. The techs fuck up Anton’s drums and he has to yell at them which he _hates_ doing. The venue had lied about the sound setup and Sonny has to yell at the management, which _he_ hates. They pull through for the show and it helps a little, seeing all the kids screaming the words back at Sonny.

Everyone’s tense when they get offstage though. Quiet, too, which means trouble. At the other end of the room Joel raises his voice for a moment at his tech and then shakes his head and spins away, stalking for where Anton’s idly explaining how the techs had nearly ruined one of his drums to Dillon.

“I need to be wasted _yesterday_ ,” Joel snarls. Behind him Anton watches Joel’s tech flip off his back and then heft Joel’s guitar and walk away.

“Me too,” Dillon says and Anton nods, follows when Joel whirls again and heads for the door. It’s the kind of night he wants to drink away.

* * *

“You didn’t ask me to join your band,” Dillon mutters in his ear.

They’re crammed together into the booth, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. Dillon’s putting out heat like a furnace and Anton’s stopped himself from turning into it more times than he can count already. He wants to lean his cheek on Dillon’s shoulder. There’s a little row of shot glasses in front of him, glinting mockingly.

“Would you have said yes?” he asks sarcastically.

“…No,” Dillon says but he sounds unsure.

“Well then,” Anton says and drowns the little pang of hope in his chest with a vicious pull on his beer.

* * *

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dillon pants into Anton’s mouth.

The brick of the alley wall is cold against his palm where he’s using it to hold him upright, pressed chest to chest with Dillon. It’s the only point that feel real. Dillon’s mouth under his feels dreamlike, soft and wet and good. The kisses taste like tequila and beer and cigarettes and Anton dizzily thinks he’s never going to get enough.

“Shh,” he mumbles back and bites down, swallowing Dillon’s desperate little noise greedily.

* * *

The next day Anton wakes up sans-Dillon in the backseat of the Feed the Noise van, Jake snoring by his ear and Jon sleeping quietly in the front seat. He doesn’t remember getting there but when he shifts his pants feel clean and he doesn’t think he did more with Dillon than what he can remember.

He sits up and paws the door open, bleary through his hangover.

It’s bright outside and Dillon’s passed out on the ground. Anton blinks at him for a moment.

He’s breathing, loudly, so he’s still alive. Anton sits down next to him and waits for the world to stop spinning. It takes a while.

Eventually Dillon stirs, snorts, and turns over. He squints into the sun for a moment and then rolls his head over and jumps when he sees Anton watching him.

“G’morning,” Anton croaks. Dillon stares at him and then throws a shaky arm over his eyes. It’s not quite running away and Anton breathes out a sense of relief.

“Fuck my _life_ ,” he groans. Anton snorts agreement and lets his head thump back against the side of the van.

Silence reigns.

“Dillon,” Anton says. Dillon shifts for a moment.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Why don’t you want to sing in my band?” Anton asks.

Silence falls again and then Dillon rolls over, turns his face to Anton. The gaze he nails Anton with is tired and bloodshot and confused.

“I don’t,” he begins and then stops, groans and heaves a hand up to rub his face. “Man, why do you want me in your band so badly? I’m a shit rhythm player and I can’t… I can’t be that good of a singer, you know?”

“You are,” Anton says instantly, thoughtlessly. Dillon stares at him for a moment and Anton realizes with a rushing sensation in his chest that Dillon’s going red. He’s _blushing_.

“Oh,” Dillon says and he sounds breathless before he clears his throat with a gross hacking noise. “Okay. I, okay. If I agree to join your band-,”

Anton cuts him off with a breathless noise. It’s high and pleased and he flushes when Dillon blinks at him.

“Anyways,” Dillon says after a beat. “I’ll join your band, I guess, Jesus.”

Anton launches himself without thinking and the instant he lands on Dillon’s back he regrets it. They both yell and Anton has to swallow a couple times to hold in the vomit and it hurts kind of badly but he squirms around anyway and wraps his arm around Dillon as well as he can.

“Yes!” he crows in Dillon’s ear and doesn’t pay any mind to the way Dillon flinches.

Eventually Dillon fights him off and they’re laying side by side on the pavement, breathing heavily and looking up at the morning sky. Dillon’s grinning, Anton sees when he peeks over. It’s bright and big and amazing and for a moment the impulse goes through him to kiss him. To lean over and kiss him so gently in celebration.

Dillon turns his head to look back and Anton stuffs the desire back down.

“So who do you have on bass?” he asks, unconcerned.

“Uh,” Anton says.

“Guitar?” Dillon continues.

“Um,” Anton says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy is William Sami Etienne Grigahcine, AKA DJ Snake


	4. the authority song - jimmy eat world

“So you don’t have anyone for anything,” Dillon concludes. 

Anton carefully drapes his arm over his eyes. 

His rush of happiness is flagging in the face of Dillon’s skepticism. He wants to roll over and shake Dillon by the shoulders, shake him until he _believes_ the way Anton does. They’re going to be huge, Anton can feel it, can feel their future opening up around them like suddenly he can breathe again. 

“We have drums and a vocalist,” he mutters. Dillon snorts. 

“I’m sure we’ll get real far with just two people,” he mutters back and then he’s rolling over, elbow knocking companionably against Anton’s side. “Whatever, we’ll figure it out or something.” 

“Yeah,” Anton says and pulls his arm carefully away from his face, mindful of the sun. When he turns his head Dillon’s inches away, cheek pressed against dark pavement, watching Anton with a little smile that makes his breath catch. Again he can’t look away for a moment that stretches on way too long, he can’t push the memory of what it’d tasted like to kiss him away. 

He swallows, tears his eyes away and rolls his head back to look up into the cloudless blue sky. It hurts his aching head but it’s better than looking at Dillon. 

“I’ll ask Sonny,” he says. “He knows everyone, he’ll find someone.” 

“Alright,” Dillon says agreeably. 

Friendly silence lapses for a long while.

* * *

“I’m a glorious triumph,” Anton announces loudly, throwing open the back of the van. 

Getter groans. 

He and Tommy are piled together against one of the amps in a pile of haphazard sleeping bags and pillows, something they probably would deny being a cuddle if Anton brought it up but that’s drifting suspiciously close to spooning. The way Getter squints into the light when he lifts his head a little suggests they’d had as much fun as Anton had last night, if not more. 

Tommy doesn’t move at all. If Anton couldn’t see his breathing he’d be a little worried they’d have to do the last leg of the tour sans bassist. 

Sonny is sitting in the far corner of the van, peering up from his phone through smudged glasses. He looks like he’d made it through the night relatively unscathed but there’s something about the way his mouth struggles to pull up into a smile that Anton notes to ask him about later. There are circles under his eyes even deeper than normal. 

“Fuck off,” Getter manages and throws a sandal in Anton’s direction. It hits the floor and falls past him out of the van. 

“Fuck yourself,” Anton replies cheerfully and climbs in, pulling the door mostly closed behind him. Getter growls as he crawls past but doesn’t do more than shove Tommy away and turn over. Tommy doesn’t react. 

“What’d you triumph over?” Sonny asks quietly when Anton’s nestled into the warm, smelly, slightly damp space between Getter’s feet and Sonny’s knees. He’s trying to smile, half a quirk of his lips, but it’s not really reaching his eyes. Something Anton really _does_ have to ask him about later, all wrong on Sonny’s usually cheerful face. 

Anton leans his head back against the wall of the van and closes his eyes for a long moment. 

His head hurts and he’s slightly nauseous, his stomach churning with his journey across the parking lot and the morning sun. There’s an ache in his leg that says maybe he did something really stupid in the fog of last night and pulled a muscle, and he’s pretty sure he’s lost his jacket. 

He’s so happy. 

“I’ve got a band,” he says and when he opens his eyes Sonny’s smiling for real this time. 

Between them he and Sonny manage to get Getter and Tommy somewhat upright and stumbling across the parking lot to the diner across the road. It’s grimy but open and the waitress doesn’t blink when they stumble in, Sonny and Anton supporting Tommy between them because he isn’t awake so much as sleepwalking. 

Anton smiles at her anyway. Nothing can touch him right now. 

He’d seen Dillon leaning against the side of the Diplo & Friends van, chatting with Wes with a beer bottle in his hand and a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. He’d grinned when he’d seen Anton and waved and Anton had nearly dropped Tommy in trying to wave back. 

His cheeks still feel warm. Jesus. 

They get Getter into the booth and lean Tommy against him and then the waitress is coming over with coffee and menus and Anton smiles at her again. This time she smiles back, guardedly. 

“So you, Dillon, and…?” Sonny asks when Anton’s managed to burn his tongue on the coffee and order an omelette heavy on the bacon. Anton blinks at him over the rim over his mug. 

“...What?” he asks slowly. 

“Who else is in the band,” Sonny says patiently. Anton sighs and knuckles at the corner of his eye for a moment. 

“Like… good question,” he says. “We don’t have any guitarists or bassists.” 

Everyone is quiet for a moment. 

“Can you even _have_ a band without guitarists or bassists?” Getter puts in after a moment, sounding fascinated. Anton snorts. 

“Not one I’d want to be part of,” he says and thumps his coffee on the table. 

Tommy groans and flops forward onto the table. Everyone jumps and Getter almost slides under the table. 

“Bro,” Tommy croaks and for a moment Anton thinks he’s talking in his sleep but then he turns his head against the sticky tabletop and fixes Anton with a bloodshot eye. “If you gimme your coffee I’ll be your guitarist.” 

Anton’s shoving his mug across the table so fast he almost splashes it all over Tommy, who doesn’t seem to notice. His hand creeps up to wrap around the mug and then he’s turning his face back into the tabletop without taking a sip. 

Everyone is quiet for a moment before Getter shrugs. 

“I’d offer but I’ve already sold my soul to my friend down in Portland, he’s got some kind of black metal project and he’s offering like a _pound_ of weed.” 

Anton snorts. 

“Understandable,” he says and then an omelette is being set down in front of him and he suddenly remembers that he is incredibly, voraciously hungry.

* * *

They’re filing out of the diner, Getter hauling a vaguely awake but still incoherent Tommy with him, when Sonny pulls him aside. 

“So I think I know someone to be your bassist,” Sonny says and Anton blinks at him. The caffeine still hasn’t quite caught up to the hangover. 

“Yeah?” he manages at last. 

Sonny looks away and shuffles his feet for a moment and then his mouth is twisting to the side and he looks back at Anton. 

“Joel isn’t going to like it but he’ll probably blame me anyway, so you’ll be fine,” Sonny says and he sounds tired. Anton frowns and reaches out to grab his arm. 

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly. 

Sonny shrugs. 

“Yeah, fine,” he says. It isn’t very convincing. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“If you’re sure,” Anton says at last. Sonny smiles wanly. 

“Fuck, man, it’ll be fine. But anyway, you want to talk to Joel’s guitar tech. He plays like a fucking dream, name’s Porter.”


End file.
